Top Guitars For Beginner Review

Here is what you need to know about me before you read the rest of my review: I am a pretty musical person. I play keyboards and ukulele, and decided that I would like to venture into the challenge of learning guitar. Also, you should know that I am visually impaired. I can see, but not very well at all. Kind of like Mr. Magoo.

Here is everything that came in the box and what I think of it:

1. The Guitar: Beautiful color. I thought it was going to be a lighter blue color, but mine kind of looks purple, which is nice because that’s my favorite color. I’m not sure if this was intentional or a mix-up at the factory, but I am content. There were a few dings in the finish, but that’s OK with me. I’m not taking it out in public for performances any time soon.

2. The “gig bag:” I like the straps on the gig bag. You wear it like a backpack, which is handy, actually. Also, it has a pocket on the front where you can keep your extra strings, your tuner, and your picks, if you want. It’s kinda cheaply made, but hey, I only paid $14.95 or something like that. I’m not complaining in the slightest.

3. Tuner: I was a little concerned when I saw that it would come with a tuner. I thought that it would be a visual display to help you tune the string. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the tuner in question was actually a pitch pipe, with six different pitches to blow, one for each string. Love that part of the deal! Wish I had one of these for my ukulele, but I’m not complaining.

Strings: Ah, yes, well, here is the one flaw in this otherwise acceptable arrangement. I was tuning the G string when it snapped. The pitch was still too low, but the string just snapped. So I thought to myself, “OK, no big deal, I have a spare.” Upone replacing that string and attempting to tune it, the replacement string snapped as well. I have since ordered a new set of strings, so that I’ll just replace them all so I know what I’m dealing with. I only knew that the strings were steel and I didn’t know the gage or anything else about them, so I’m just going to replace them all and then I’ll know what I have next time one breaks.

My overall opinion of this product is that it is a good guitar to start with, to learn on. It doesn’t have to be perfect if you are just learning in the comfort of your own home or in the company of an instructor who isnt’ going to look down on you or anything like that. If you are going to buy this product, I do highly reccommend that you buy a new set of strings, since there is no way to be sure what strings are already on the guitar. Thankfully, strings, even steel ones, can be pretty cheap. I got mine for $3. I also bought some extra picks, but that’s nothing to do with the one that came with the guitar. Oh yeah, did I mention the kit only comes with one pick? You might also want to buy some extra picks just in case. I got a 12 pack of blue ones for $5 or thereabouts. But this is a good product, and it shipped out really fast, even with only standard shipping. I was happy about that.

I was skeptical after reading all of the reviews about the quality of this product. I figured for the price it would at least be worth a shot, and if it was as “bad” as others were saying then I was out very little money… Here are my thoughts and I hope this helps everyone who is considering buying this guitar for a child that is not sure if they want to learn to play or not. I would rather spend minimal $$ on a chance rather than a larger investment on a name brand guitar.

When I gave the guitar to my 7 year old who wants to “learn to play like Daddy”, she just about fell over. She didn’t care that it was not a Taylor Grand Concert or another name brand, she had a guitar. I read alot about the comments stating that the guitar could not be tuned, and being a guitar enthusiast I felt differently. Here is a tip, yes if you try to do a standard tuning on the guitar, it will bow the neck backwards causing it to seem impossible to tune, however if you tune it down an octave you get several benefits. 1) the strings are easier to press which is vital for young hands just learning to play chords 2) the tension on the neck is minimal causing it not to bow and then the tuning works just fine. 3) you have a very happy child who thinks the world of you.

I will not say buyer beware, because for the price this is a good buy. If you want your child to be the next Joe Satriani and high quality is what you believe is important in a 1st guitar then you shouldn’t buy this one. On the other hand, if you have intelligence you realize that you can make a minimal investment to offer your child the opportunity to learn the art of music and as they advance then you can go to your local guitar retailer and pay the higher price for the name brand guitar.

Bottom line, good product and very reasonably priced. I have no problem with it at all. Maybe some of the others who complained should study guitars a little more and understand that tuning of the Low E to E3 is not the way it always has to be.

Purchased this for my daughter who is only 5. I was leary that it would be cheap but once I opened the box (was not impressed with the packaging) I was super surprised and almost a little leary that it might be too nice for a starter for a 5 year old.

Negative* Packaging- the cardboard triangle box that it shipped in was poorly taped and pretty much open when I received it.

Little paint issues down the bridge but for the price who cares!

The description on the color had me confused. Said it was Purple when I ordered then everything during tracking said it was blue. It is infact Purple…several shades of purple. Beautiful.

The whole package arrived in a very timely manner. It’s been years since I have attempted to play a guitar and realized that I’d forgotten everything I had learned. I also ordered the Qwik Tune GP1 Guitar Professor Guitar Tuner and guitar stand at the same time. It’s one of the best ways to tune the guitar. Very important to me that I had something to tune it with as well as place/thing to hold it. This guitar is an excellent deal! I’ve never been fortunate enough to have owned an expensive guitar, usually used ones so having a new guitar was a step in the right direction. The sound of the amp is great for a small practice amp. I especially like the “overdrive”. It gives it a whole different “rockin” sound. Most of the time however, I don’t have to use the amp to practice as I’d probably bother the neighbors. I also ordered 2 sets of Ernie Ball strings since I figured the original strings wouldn’t be of the same quality. Overall I’d give this a five star for the quality of sound and the sunburst finish is great.

I picked up this guitar deal to satisfy my “mid-life crisis” desire to learn to play the guitar. I agree with what many have already said here in that it’s a good starting package. The guitar itself seems well built and mechanically solid. The color is slightly different from the picture, but very beautiful. (The picture certainly does not do it justice.) Mine has a slight green tinge to the blue. As someone has said earlier, the “Sky” logo on the guitar and amp have been replaced with “BC”. It appears BestChoiceproducts is now branding them as their own. Amazingly, this has no effect at all on the sound quality it produces.

The unit comes in a very well-packaged box which is wrapped in a standard Amazon shipping box. The outer box had a hole in it large enough to put my small finger through when it arrived, but the inner protective packaging was hardly scratched. Well protected for shipping! When I unboxed it, there was some remnants of protective coating on the pick guard portion. Looks like they tried to remove it prior to shipping and did an incomplete job. About 5 minutes with a blunt pair of tweezers to pull the plastic from under the strings was all that was needed.

The strap is basic but appears to work fine. I’m 6’1″, and used the adjustment on it to have it sit comfortably on my shoulder. I don’t think I would want to use this for hours on end as it isn’t quite that comfortable. However, if I ever get to the point where that becomes an issue, I’ll go splurge on something of higher quality. However, the included one is stable and I have no concern over the guitar dropping or the adjustment sliding while using it.

I got this Electric Guitar one year ago, it was my first and not my last, this is a great company and i got in before my birthday last year. Now ive been self teaching my self and the strings have just barely broke,, high E string over 1 year of me playing fast and hard, this guitar is also very light, my brother got a guitar from SKY and i realized that my guitar was light, I recommend this guitar to anyone, its so slick and smoothe that you just wanna hold in your arms forever. The Amp is the best and does clean very good, but the OverDrive is what got me to keep playing, even though it is really small and light, it is really really loud if you want it to be. The only thing bad about this guitar is that its to AWESOME, i want to get more of this same guitar and just paint it different colors, i can tell you that i well be buying more guitars from here.

Sorry about using my credentials in the title, but I want to convey how much experience I have with these strings. Sorry if I sound like an ad. I REALLY love these strings.
I have strung literally thousands of guitars over my 40 years of repairing stringed instruments. D’Addario EJ16s are IMHO the best strings money can buy- it is the standard of the industry for good reason… they’re simply the best string available! D’Addario’s corrosion-proof sealed bags ensure you get them as fresh as when they left the factory. Lower grade cheap strings are shipped in simple paper envelopes and allow the metals inside to oxidize just while sitting on the shelf at the warehouse, store or while in your case. On the other hand, expensive hand made strings, like DRs or J Pierce, are wrapped way too tightly, thus, have too much mass, so your guitar’s intonation and rod will probably need to be readjusted. They also play stiffly. D’Addario uses the best steel and bronze alloy and wraps the wound strings with just the correct tension over a hex-shaped inner wire. This causes the outter wrapped wire to essentially be “locked” onto the inner hex wire. This secure wrap keeps it from separating and allows the string to breathe and bend great. They’re also VERY resistant to breakage. I have only broken a handful of D’Addarios over several thousand restringings, and the breakages usually only occurred due to a burr on the tuner post, nut, or bridge. On strings like Martin SPs, they’re known to be a more bendable string than Daddarios. This is because the inner wire of the wound strings are much smaller in diameter. This leads to easier string breakage and easier separation of the inner wire and outter wrap wire. TRUST ME ON THIS… you will love Daddario EJ16 strings!

String Swing Metal Home and Studio Wide Guitar Hanger (Black)

My guitars are hanging nicely on the wall now. One is a semiacoustic electric (like an ES-335), one is an electric classical Ibanez, and most are solid body. None of them hit the wall behind, and there is no tendency to hit the wall when I retrieve a guitar or hang it back up. This hanger does not stress the guitars, it is a stress-free situation. Because I mounted all the wall hangers on a piece of hardwood that was not quite as tall as the black metal piece, I decided to mount the black metal piece sideways. It works very well this way, except that the words printed on the metal are now sideways, but that’s no big deal. I did this with all eight wall hangers I bought, and they all work fine. The only problem with this product is that the large rubber washers near the ends of the forks do not come assembled on the forks. I had to pull them on. This was challenging. I accomplished it by wearing work gloves, lubricating everything with tap water, and holding the rubber washer with a small pipe wrench. Unless your hands are made of leather I suggest you do likewise.

Dunlop 5005 Pick Holder, Each (5005)

Was looking for a place to store some picks and picked this up and I have to say it’s pretty good and worth the money. It doesn’t hold just standard sized picks, it also can hold oddly shaped ones like triangles.
The amount it can hold really depends on what size your pick is (mm size). I use the .88 Tortex ones and it can hold 6 picks just fine. You can fit 7 at the most, but 6 for the best results.
It comes with a little piece of mounting tape on the back so you can stick it on your guitar, amp, case, etc. Good for a gig or just practice at home.

Snark SN1 Guitar Tuner

The Snark SN-1 Tuner is an inexpensive gadget that works perfectly. It’s features include:
– chromatic tuner for acoustic, electric and bass guitars
– Metronome (BPM) indicator with a range from 40-250
– pitch calibration from 415-466 Hz
– adjustment that allows you to tune your guitar even while using a capo.

In short, this is a fantastic electronic tuner. I love everything about this little guy. It has a battery saving feature that basically puts the tuner into sleep mode after 10 seconds and then turns completely off after 2 minutes of inactivity.

The BPM indicator is really handy and can be operated two different ways; either by tapping the BPM button once, which then defaults to 100 BPM and can be further adjusted to the desired BPM by pushing the up or down buttons on the back of the unit to achieve your desired BPM setting. Once it’s set, the red colored, heart shaped display pulses to the BPM you set.

If you use a capo, you’ll be pleased to discover this tuner works easily with the capo. You simply push the “flat” button on the back to either “1”-“2″-“3″ or “4”, corresponding to the capo position; 1’st fret, 2nd fret and so on. Tune as you normally would and the Snark accommodates the capo position and indicates when you’re in tune.

The Snark has a very secure grip on your guitar headstock and it’s rubber pads will help prevent any damage to your precious instrument. It’s probably best to take the Snark off when you don’t need it just to ensure it doesn’t mar the surface of your instrument.

The color dial of the Snark is very easy to read and tuning is quickly accomplished. The Snark is extremely accurate. I confirmed this with a tuning fork. It was dead-on accurate.

What a great little device. Tuning your guitar has never been easier or more accurate. And it’s inexpensive enough to have a couple of them wherever you need them.

You know how difficult it can be to tune accurately when you’re in a noisy environment? Well the Snark eliminates that problem as ambient noise really doesn’t affect it. It’s picking up the frequency of the string from your instrument and therefore works well even when you can’t hear what the heck is going. The bright, color display clearly indicates when your tuning is spot-on.

I can’t think of anything I do not like about the Snark. Although there have been some comments about the tabs-that hold the ball-breaking off, I think that with reasonable care this is not a big issue. Clearly though, mis-handling the Snark-bumping it into a music stand or something-could cause the tabs to break. Just use caution and I think you’ll be fine. As for battery life, I have not had my Snark long enough to comment on that. I will update my review if it seems like battery life is unusually short. Otherwise I can highly recommended the Snark SN-1 tuner..

The Pick Cutter A Guitar Pick Maker – Guitar Puncher Tool That Makes Custom Picks – This DIY Pick Hole Puncher Helps You Cut Picks Like A Guitar Pro – Use Any Plastic to Make As Many Quality Unique Picks As You Like – This Guitar Pick Tool Gives 100% Fun Every Time – Cut Guitar Plectrum Picks Fast With Smooth Edges – Best Guitar Gift 100% Awesome and Never Pay for Picks Again

I normally don’t leave reviews but did want to give some credit and a high rating for this product. We bought the pick punch last week because my daughter was running for student council at her high school and she wanted to give out guitar picks along with the slogan “PICK ME for student council”. All three of my children play guitar, so I figured it would be a good investment.

It arrived in the mail and within 2 days we had cut out over 200 guitar picks! It cut perfectly even on thicker plastic. The punch was durable, easy to use, and felt like it was high quality. The kit DID include a few sheets of plastic (enough to cut about 20 picks), but we used mostly plastic gift cards from places like Target and Walmart so the picks would have a variety of patterns and textures. They were such a hit that we had to cut 200 more! Within a weeks time, the punch had cut over 400 guitar picks and is still going strong. My daughter took it to her guitar class yesterday and all the students cut even more.

I highly recommend this product and already feel that I’ve gotten my money’s worth. It would have cost hundreds of dollars to purchase that many guitar picks. It’s a good investment.